CLEVELAND, Ohio -- When Brad Ricca was in seventh grade at Burneson Junior High School in Westlake, his gifted-and-talented class buried a time capsule. The year was 1984. Ricca remembers putting a book into the time capsule – he can't remember which one – and writing a note to the future world that he wanted to be a writer.

He also has a vague memory of putting a can of New Coke in the time capsule.

"In which case, the whole thing could be ruined," he said. "I'm pretty sure it would have exploded at some point."

Thirty years later, New Coke is long gone and the time capsule apparently is, too. (More on that later.)

But something from that time capsule did explode: Ricca's career as a writer.

His book, "Super Boys: The Amazing Adventures of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster – the Creators of Superman," published by St. Martin's Press, came out last summer to great reviews – including a long take in the New Yorker, the Holy Grail for authors.

Ricca doesn't know what the sales figures are (and publishers tend to keep those numbers close to the chest), but they were good enough that the publisher elected to issue it in paperback. It came out this month.

The book, along with Ricca's prize-winning book of poetry, "American Mastodon," published in 2011 by Black Lawrence Press, earned him the Cleveland Arts Prize Emerging Artist Award in Literature.

Henry Adams, an Arts Prize juror and professor of art at Case Western Reserve University, said, "This rather astounding first book is a nationally significant achievement, a book that has been widely praised and a collection of odd and amazing data that clearly will hold place as a scholarly achievement for decades."

Ricca won the award for his writing, but he has also made a film, "Last Son." The 2008 documentary about Siegel and Shuster, which tells the real-life origin story of Superman in Cleveland during the Depression, was a warm-up of sorts for the book. The 65-minute film was widely shown and won the Silver Ace award at the Las Vegas Film Festival.

"Suddenly, I was this Superman expert," Ricca said. Reporters contacted him when they did Superman stories – one of which landed on the radar of a literary agent in New York.

"He called and asked me, 'Have you ever thought of doing a book?' " Ricca said. "I lucked out. He totally helped me get to the next step."

The next step was writing a chapter for the agent. It was a bust. "He said, 'You just wrote an academic paper. Now just write a story, 'cause it's a good story.' "

The academic-paper style came naturally. Ricca has a doctorate in English from CWRU, where he now teaches in the SAGES program and serves as a faculty advisor to first-year students. His dissertation was on 19th-century American authors and astronomy, focusing mostly on Emily Dickinson.

Ricca found his non-academic writing groove on the rewrite, and then his agent helped him put together a full proposal to send out to publishers. It sold in just a couple of days.

That was when Ricca discovered the unhappy truth about writing a book, even a book about a comic-book hero. "It took a lot longer than I thought it would, and it was a lot of work. I hated it – but that's what writing is. You have to work so hard to get one sentence that you like."

Ricca's mother was an elementary school teacher and his father had his own business selling windows. Each had a role in Ricca's path to writing "Super Boys."

"My mom showered me with books when I was a kid," he said. "But she also gave me comic books. Now she says, 'I can't believe I did that,' and I say, 'Thank you!' "

His dad would take him and his brother on trips into Cleveland and tell them stories about the city. "He told us Superman was created in Cleveland, and I never believed him."

Besides, back then Ricca was a fan of the "X-Men" comics. "Superman was boring," he said. "Like your dad's comic book. Lame."

He rediscovered Superman after he earned his doctorate. "I was looking for something to do after all the Emily Dickinson stuff, and I thought, 'Why not Superman?' "

And so, from America's original superhero, a writer was born. A super, Cleveland Arts Prize-winning writer.

Now, about that time capsule.

On Monday, June 16, Ricca went back to Burneson – now called Burnseon Middle School and in a brand-new building – for a ceremony. This year's gifted-and-talented class buried its own time capsule, and the teachers hoped they could find, and open, the capsule from 1984.

"Apparently our time capsule was destroyed, though no one had actual proof of this, so it was a little controversial (and disappointing)," Ricca emailed later that day. "The cool thing was that the original letter written to the class of 2014 survived and apparently I was the Project Coordinator (which I didn't remember) and it had a map, a list of addresses (no emails!) etc. The capsule was supposed to have letters to our future selves but like I said: gone."

The letter might be gone, but we can guess at the message. The 13-year-old Ricca no doubt told the 43-year-old Ricca to be a writer, and to enjoy a can of New Coke on him.

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